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Overview

Irene Gendzier's critically acclaimed, wide-reaching analysis of post-World War II U.S. policy in Lebanon posits that the politics of oil and pipelines figured far more significantly in U.S. relations with Lebanon than previously believed. In 1958 the United States sent thousands of troops to shore up the Lebanese regime in the face of domestic opposition and civil war. The justification was preventing a coup in Iraq, but recently declassified documents show that the true objective was to protect America's commercial, political, and strategic interests in Beirut and the Middle East. By reevaluating U.S.-Lebanese relations within the context of America's collaborative intervention with the Lebanese ruling elite, Gendzier aptly demonstrates how oil, power, and politics drove U.S. policy and influenced the development of the state and the region. Featuring a new introduction in which Gendzier discusses the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the remarkable continuity of U.S. foreign policy from 1945 to the present, Notes from the Minefield continues to be the standard text on this topic.

What People Are Saying

Richard Falk

Irene Gendzier's brilliant historical study of American interventionary diplomacy in Lebanon is today even more illuminating than when originally published in 1997. The extensive new introduction ties this unknown and forgotten past to the ugly realities of the present, linked as they are to the Iraq War and the struggle to keep control over Middle Eastern oil. What comes across most clearly in the book is that the American people have for decades been deliberately kept in the dark as to the real motives of U.S. policy: hegemony plus oil. Above all, Gendzier in this book is awakening Americans to the failed responsibilities of citizenship, which depends on breaking the ongoing governmental/media stranglehold on true awareness about what is really going on in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

— Richard Falk, Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, emeritus, and emeritus professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University

Fawwaz Traboulsi

Irene Gendzier has managed a fascinating intellectual tour de force. She has written a thoroughly documented history of a crucial period of Lebanon's life, drawing our attention to the untapped resources of the U.S. government archives; analyzed U.S. foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s, revealing its two main driving motors, oil and the defense of Israel; and highlighted the tragically unlearnt lessons of U.S. interventionism. This is what critical history is about.

— Fawwaz Traboulsi, associate professor of history and international affairs at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and the author of A History of Modern Lebanon

The reissue of Irene Gendzier's outstanding work is greatly to be welcomed, perhaps even more so than its publication a decade ago. With attention riveted on the Middle East, it is even more imperative than before to overcome the "public amnesia" that she rightly deplores, and to understand the roots of policy and the reasons for the fundamental continuities since World War II. No less important is her unraveling of the mechanisms employed to impede public understanding and 'the capacity to dissent and resist'--essential if we are to avert grave threats and radically reorient policies to humane directions. To these ends, this fine study makes an inestimable contribution.

Richard Falk

Irene Gendzier's brilliant historical study of American interventionary diplomacy in Lebanon is today even more illuminating than when originally published in 1997. The extensive new introduction ties this unknown and forgotten past to the ugly realities of the present, linked as they are to the Iraq War and the struggle to keep control over Middle Eastern oil. What comes across most clearly in the book is that the American people have for decades been deliberately kept in the dark as to the real motives of U.S. policy: hegemony plus oil. Above all, Gendzier in this book is awakening Americans to the failed responsibilities of citizenship, which depends on breaking the ongoing governmental/media stranglehold on true awareness about what is really going on in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

Noam Chomsky

The reissue of Irene Gendzier's outstanding work is greatly to be welcomed, perhaps even more so than its publication a decade ago. With attention riveted on the Middle East, it is even more imperative than before to overcome the "public amnesia" that she rightly deplores, and to understand the roots of policy and the reasons for the fundamental continuities since World War II. No less important is her unraveling of the mechanisms employed to impede public understanding and 'the capacity to dissent and resist'--essential if we are to avert grave threats and radically reorient policies to humane directions. To these ends, this fine study makes an inestimable contribution.

Fawwaz Traboulsi

Irene Gendzier has managed a fascinating intellectual tour de force. She has written a thoroughly documented history of a crucial period of Lebanon's life, drawing our attention to the untapped resources of the U.S. government archives; analyzed U.S. foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s, revealing its two main driving motors, oil and the defense of Israel; and highlighted the tragically unlearnt lessons of U.S. interventionism. This is what critical history is about.

Editorial Reviews

Jordan Times
- Sally Bland

Notes from the Minefield is history at its best.

Jordan Times

Notes from the Minefield is history at its best.

— Sally Bland

Richard Falk

Irene Gendzier's argument is tightly presented and coherent, and the overall story of the antecedent to the 1958 U.S. intervention in Lebanon is told with insight, clarity, and on the basis of an excellent use of primary research materials. This book will be looked upon as a model for the presentation of a well-evidenced argument on the nature of U.S. foreign relations with Lebanon, and more generally, with the Middle East.

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